Six-time Suzuka winners Mercedes qualify behind key rivals on the fourth row, one second off Max Verstappen's stunning pace; watch the Japanese GP on Sky Sports F1 from 4.30am Sunday, with lights out at 6am
Saturday 23 September 2023 14:25, UK
Lewis Hamilton believes Mercedes' struggles at the Japanese GP have shown up "100 per cent" what aspects of their car need to change for 2024.
On a sobering Saturday for Max Verstappen's rivals as the Red Bull driver roared to pole position around the acrobatic Suzuka layout by more than half a second, Mercedes' Hamilton and George Russell trailed by over one second adrift in seventh and eighth places.
Hamilton was back ahead of Russell in the intra-Mercedes qualifying head-to-head for the first time since the August summer break, and said he had been more comfortable in the car compared to Friday and was generally "really happy" about how he had driven.
But, as the Q3 stopwatch underlined, the pace from the Mercedes W14 was simply not there to qualify higher up.
"Yesterday was a bad day," said Hamilton to Sky Sports F1. "Each weekend we are having, out of the three days... at least one bad day.
"The balance didn't feel great yesterday, we did some changes and good work overnight, and the car has felt generally really nice today. It has been nice to drive through P3, so I've been feeling much more confident.
"Then in qualifying I was giving it everything but that seven-tenths deficit we have in sector one, it's all rear end [downforce]. Our car has loads of load on the front and not as much as we need on the rear.
"So we're a really long way down on that and for me it's 100 per cent clear that's concept - and we have got to make sure we change that for next year, which hopefully we will.
"I gave it everything I could, I was happy with my laps, they were just not that quick compared to others."
A week after 2023's formbook at the front of the field was turned completely on its head in Singapore, as Red Bull's dominant pace suddenly evaporated on a street track ill-suited to their car, a more familiar narrative has re-emerged at faster Suzuka - and then some.
Mercedes' fortunes across this double-header have proved the opposite of Red Bull's - strong in Singapore but weak in Japan - with last week's victors Ferrari also nowhere near as competitive as they were just seven days ago.
McLaren have been the team to run Verstappen closest, qualifying second and third on Saturday, although even they remained six tenths of a second adrift of pole.
Russell, three tenths slower than Hamilton in Q3, said: "It's a fair representation of how we are on circuits like this. When there's a big contrast of corners - high-speed and low-speed corners, we struggle to cover all aspects.
"Whereas on circuits where it's one type of corner, like we saw last week in Singapore, we can nail the sweet spot of the car and maximise the downforce.
"No big surprise but obviously a bit of a shock to the system. But when you think about it rationally, it's about where you would expect."
Once one of their strongholds, performance through the track's sweeping section of opening corners, the Esses, has proved particularly problematic for Mercedes this year.
"It's exactly where it was in FP3," said Bradley Lord, Mercedes' communications director.
"The first sector here through the Esses is exactly the sort of stuff where we are not particularly strong.
"We have seen McLaren make a good step there as well, so that's been our deficit through all the weekend.
"We made some progress all through the weekend but even on that final lap George reported the car was sliding around there and the tyres weren't really biting. Lewis managed to find a small improvement but unfortunately we have shaken out where the pace of the car is."
Lord added: "It's a clear picture of where we have got to work and the ground we have to make up over the winter. But also we've still got some upgrades to come and we hope those will help us make another small step forward as well."
The fourth-fastest team in qualifying, Mercedes are nonetheless still in touch with Ferrari, their main rivals for second in the Constructors' Championship, heading into Sunday's race.
The Scuderia's cars qualified just ahead of them in fourth and sixth places and Mercedes could hold a strategic advantage in terms of their remaining tyre allocation.
"The one thing they have in their hand is an extra hard tyre compared to everyone else," explained Sky Sports F1's Bernie Collins.
"We think it's going to be multiple stop race and I think that will be an advantage compared to some of the others. I think McLaren have a hard tyre as well but, compared to Ferrari, Mercedes are a little bit up there.
"It is a hard track to overtake on historically but this year we are seeing much higher degradation. We are going to see two-to-three stops, rather than one-to-two as we have in the past. Mercedes are very good at their strategy and tend to pull it together on a Sunday with better race pace, so they are not quite out of it yet."
"It's a steep gap that we have to close for next year but we have seen what the Astons did coming into this year," said Hamilton in reference to Aston Martin's big winter turnaround in form. "So they [teams] can make big steps.
"We have seen what McLaren have done this year by going down the Red Bull [development] route and they are now ahead of us here on a track like this."
Speaking to reporters, Andrew Shovlin, the team's trackside engineering director, said: "We have had a pretty chastening couple of years and we are a team that are working very hard to try and get back to the front."
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